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Book A^. 






IN THE LAND OF 
DEATH 



TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OP 

BENJAMIN VALLOTTON 




NEW YORK 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS IN AMERICA FOR HODDER & STOUGHTON 
PRICE TEN CENTS 



IN THE LAND OF 
DEATH 



%oi 



TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF 

BENJAMIN VALLOTTON "77 ^"^ 




NEW YORK 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS IN AMERICA FOR HODDER & STOUGHTON 






By TVnnfrfer 

MAY 6 : 1919 



PREFATORY NOTE 

THE author of the moving pages which 
follow, Monsieur Benjamin Vallotton, 
is a Swiss novelist of considerable reputa- 
tion not only in his own country, but also 
in France. He is not unknown in England, 
for an English edition of his Ce qii'en pense 
Potterat was issued this year under the title 
of Potterat and the War (Heinemann), and 
was well reviewed in the Press. 

He was born at Gryon in 1877. Prom 
1895 until 1899 he studied at the Univer- 
sity of Lausanne. In 1900 he took a course 
at the Sorbonne and in the same year be- 
came a teacher at Mulhouse, in Alsace, 
where he remained until the year 1910. 
During this time he had many opportunities 
of observing the effect of German rule in 
the conquered province, and he returned to 
Lausanne with a greater love for Prance 
and a deeper attachment to the free, demo- 
cratic institutions of his own country. 

ill 



iv PREFATORY NOTE 

In the meantime novels and short sketches 
had begim to appear from his pen. He was 
at first particularly successful with sketches 
of military life. Among his most popular 
novels may be named: Fortes Entr'otwer- 
tes, Propos dii Commissaire Potterat 
(1904), Monsieur Potterat se marie (1905), 
and La Famille Profit (1908), which latter 
secured him the Prix Jouy of the French 
Academy and was successfully dramatised 
in the following year. In 1915 Ce qu'en 
pense Potterat was published and had a 
great success. 

During the first months of the war M. Val- 
lotton visited the French front and saw 
something of the wanton destruction car- 
ried out by the German Armies in their at- 
tempt to crush the spirit of France. He 
described his impressions in a series of elo- 
quent articles which were published in the 
Gazette de Lausanne and afterwards re-is- 
sued in book form under the title of A tra- 
vers la France en Guerre, The present vol- 
ume is a continuation of these impressions, 
which originally appeared in the Gazette de 
Lausanne during April and May, 1917. 



PREFATOEY NOTE v 

M. Vallotton is a citizen of a neutral 
State, but that he completely realises the ab- 
solute impossibility, at least for anyone who 
has seen what he describes, of any sort of 
moral neutrality, is proved by the following 
passage which we may extract from the work 
A tr avers la France en Guerre: — 

"If there exists anywhere a certain conception of 
neutrality which exacts that we shall- keep silence after 
having day after day contemplated a country ruthlessly 
rava;eed, after having heard the sobs of those who wept 
for parents who had been shot, of those at the mercy of 
brutal drunken soldiers, we entertain for such a neu- 
trality nothing short of contempt. 

"As a Swiss I learned to love liberty. It is, there- 
fore, in my character of Swiss that the victory of 
France and England will fill me with joy. Not to sym- 
pathise with those who struggle for right is to prepare 
the misfortune, the ruin of small nations. Let right 
triumph and they will live." 



IN THE LAND OF DEATH 



IN 
THE LAND OF DEATH 

WHAT THEY ARE- SAYING 

THE train moves on through the rain 
and darkness, the only train that we 
can take since coal became so scarce. The 
very corridors are full of people. For every 
five travellers who get out at a station of 
which a dull voice drones out the name, 
twenty others fight their way in. One would 
think it impossible to add to our numbers, 
yet, with the help of a little good temper, 
the miracle happens ten times during the 
night. 

And the train moves on vnth. its human 
freight, halts between stations, starts again, 
and again comes to a stop. The rain falls 
ceaselessly, drumming mournfully over our 
heads. 

Suddenly a voice says: 

7 



8 IN THE LAND OF DEATH 

'^We're two hours and twenty minutes 
late." 

And an old gentleman answers : 

'*Tlie day before yesterday it was three 
hours and forty minutes." 

*^Bah! So long as we get there! After 
all it's better than in the trenches." 

These words meet with the approval of 
the company, and three soldiers, who have 
been sleeping with their kit-bags on their 
knees, wake up. One of them is a tremen- 
dous fellow with a rather dazed expression. 
Another is a reservist with delicately- 
formed features. The third is an inimitable 
colonial, with narrow forehead, pointed 
nose, mouth made for chaffing, and a black 
heavily-drooping moustache, which lends a 
comical air of melancholy to his sly physiog- 
nomy. 

^' Going back?" the reservist asks the co- 
lonial. 

*^Yes. And you two?" 

**No. They've done with us for the pres- 
ent. We're being patched up again and 
are going to another hospital." 

^*What did you get?" 



IN THE LAND OF DEATH 9 

The giant takes off his cap. In it there 
are two neat, round holes. 

The colonial's eyes grow big. ^* You mean 
that you've had a bullet through your 
skulls" he cries. 

^^Sure enough," says the other. 

'^And you're not dead?" 

*^Not I, since I'm here." ^ 

'^You're not pulling my leg?" 

**Feel for yourself." 

Like Doubting Thomas, the colonial feels. 
Then he gives a long whistle and is silent. 
Suddenly he says : 

**You were born lucky." 

The old gentleman amiably asks how it 
happened. 

^^Ah," he is told, ^Hhat sort of thing comes 
when one is too curious. One evening, in 
the trenches, I took the fancy to have a look 
round. I climbed up on the steps and 
showed the top of my head. Zim! I didn't 
have long to wait, I can promise you. The 
fellow opposite had sharp eyes. It was just 
like a whack from a club. It seems that I 
just sat down and said: ^The dirty dog!' 
So the others tell me. They took me to the 



10 IN THE LAND OF DEATH 

field hospital, they shaved my head, they tre- 
panned me, as they call it— and there I 
was!" 

''And you are quite well again?" asks the 
old gentleman kindly. 

''That depends. Sometimes my head 
aches fit to split; at other times, when I'm 
walking, everything suddenly goes round 
and round. Then there's only one thing to 
do— lie down flat on your stomach. And 
quickly too. Then it goes off again. Well, 
well! It's no good worrying! Besides, a 
ballet through the skull— that's not a thing 
that happens to every one. But it's a family 
failing. My brother now, it happened to him 
too— in Champagne. Only he died of it, he 

did." 

As for the reservist, he has done his 
twenty-nine months at the front without a 
scratch, right up to the capture of the C6t€ 
du Poivre, in December, 1916, by the Pas- 
saga Division. 

"We left the trenches," he tells us, ''and 
ran forward, shouting. All went well. The 
Boches were so stunned by the bombard- 
ment that there was nothing to be seen but 



IN THE LAND OF DEATH 11 

hands in the air. We gathered eleven thou- 
sand like ripe plums. Yes, everything was 
over and done with and we were already 
laughing and joking, when I got a bullet in 
the elbow. For the moment I felt nothing 
at all, only a little prick. ^Now then,' said 
I, *none of vour nonsense.' Ten minutes 
later I was in such pain as I have never 
thought there could be. My" arm was like 
your thigh, saving your presence. And the 
pain was running through my back and stab- 
bing me in the head as if I'd had the back 
of it smashed. They picked me up and I 
came to the field hospital with a man who 
had only one leg left him. He was dead. 
*Poor lad,' said the major to him, * you've 
done badly for yourself.' In the hospital 
they sewed me up and hunted for the mus- 
cles with pincers. And they made out that 
I could move my hand again. 'Not, per- 
haps, so as to become a pianist,' as the major 
told me, 'but well enough to stick a finger 
in your eye.' " 

When it came to the colonial's turn he 
modestly excused himself. 

Oh, I've nothing at all — nothing to speak 



a 



12 IN THE LAND OF DEATH 

of. A ball in the biceps. That's a thing to 
stick a bit of soft bread on and think no 
more about. And then — just three toes 
frozen on my left foot. They cut them off 
for me. If I was a fiddler that might be 
troublesome now and then ; but for a carpen- 
ter — it's nothing. Oh, I can't boast about 
my wounds. Nothing at all. Nothing!" 

For a few moments they talk fighting. 

*^The rifle's no good any longer." 

^* That's so. About as useful as a fishing- 
rod. You roll into a ditch, and there it is — 
corked up, with earth, if not with mud. Out 
of fifty rifles, in an attack where one has to 
cross shell-holes and hide in them, there's 
not one that will fire after two minutes. Not 
one, you understand. Why, there are many 
men who don't even carry the things." 

*^ There's nothing of any use except the 
bomb and the revolver and the machine-gun. 
The bomb's great. One takes as many as 
one pleases, and then — zim ! and boom ! Oh, 
it's a great weapon. The man who knows 
how to throw it — I mean throw it properly — 
he can do something worth while." 

*'As for me," says the reservist thought- 



IN THE LAND OF DEATH 13 

fully, ^^I have no love for the bayonet. To 
begin with, when you use it you are face to 
face with your man. It is a personal affair. 
Yes, you kill a man. While with a bomb, 
you throw it from a distance and with luck 
you do for three or four. And it is as if 
you hadn't killed anyone." 

They cease their talk and go to sleep, all 
but the Colonial, who is now giving a lady 
an account of the tour that he made in Switz- 
erland before the war. One thing in par- 
ticular remains with him — Mont Soleil, near 
Saint Imier. 

^* Nothing could be prettier. Mont Blanc, 
thirty kilometres away, madam; and quite 
little, like a silver star. And mountains! 
more mountains than you can think. But 
one ought to be there in August. At any 
other time you're chin-deep in the snow. 
But in August you have the forest, the 
mountains, the pastures, the cattle. Noth- 
ing could be prettier. Nothing." 

Exhausted by this poetical excursion the 
colonial in his turn drowses off, with his 
head on his kit-bag. 

In the silence two women in mourning 



14 IN THE LAND OF DEATH 

exchange whispered confidences. One hears : 

''Yes! Two sons.'' 

''How long ago?" 

"The second, three months. The first in 
1914. They were twenty-four and twenty 
years old.'' 

"And I. My husband and a brother." 

"It's horrible." 

"Yes! it's horrible. Where is there a 
family that does not grieve for someone?" 

They speak still more softly. 

In the next compartment some young girls 
are saying that they are coming home from 
Lausanne, where their father, an officer, is 
interned, after being twenty-five months a 
prisoner. Someone asks: 

"I hope you did not find him too much 
altered?" 

"Oh! he was very thin. And he coughs." 

' ' You like Lausanne ? ' ' 

"It's a pretty, clean place; but it's too 
hilly." 

In another compartment ten children are 
crowded together, little girls and boys be- 
tsveen seven and twelve years old, sent away 



IN THE LAND OP DEATH 15 

from the villages of the Somine, through 
Switzerland. Each has a ticket pinned on 
to his or her breast, with an address. They 
are all going to Paris. And they chatter 
away like sparrows when the sun is coming 
up ; they tickle one another and laugh. Prom 
the Somme, by way of Carlsruhe, Schaff- 
hausen, and Geneva, to Paris — ^what a jour- 
ney! And they are always saying: ^'Gut!'' 
''schlechtf' '^genug!'' and then they burst 
out laughing. And they treat one another 
like Germans — Germans four feet high. 

^^ Where's your father?" 

^^Don'tknow." 

^^And your mother?" 

''Don't know." 

''They took my father away." 

"Where to?" 

"Don't know. They took him away." 

A little rascal, the height of sixpen'orth 
of coppers, announces : 

"We weren't afraid of the Boches, They 
said to us: 'You Germans.' And we an- 
swered them: 'You Prenchmen.' " 

' ' Were you hungry ? ' ' 

"Now and then." 



16 IN THE LAND OF DEATH 

^^Who gave you your food?" 

*^The Americans. But sometimes the 
Boches helped themselves." 

^'Were any of the Germans kind to you?" 

*^ Sometimes." 

And the oldest of them explains volubly: 
**The worst are the Saxons and the Prus- 
sians. And all the officers. There are some 
good fellows among the Bavarians." 

'^Well, you're happy now?" 

' ' I believe you ! We 're going to Paris. ' ' 

The ticket collector appears. 

*^ Ladies and gentlemen, tickets, if you 
please." To the children he says: **Are 
you all right, you young ones? Are you 
being good? That's right! Stick to it." 

But the colonial's ticket is not in order, 
and he must find thirty-five centimes. And 
although the old gentleman has at once paid 
what is required, that is not the end of the 
discussion. 

**A11 the same," the colonial repeats, ^4t's 
hard luck. To risk one's skin every day, 
and for nothing, as you might say, and then 
to have to pay seven sous. It's in the first 



IN THE LAND OF DEATH 17 

class, with the young ladies of the Opera, 
that we ought to travel." 

"My friend," replies the ticket collector 
gently, ^^I am fifty years old, and I've been 
thirty years on the railway. And the other 
day, for passing over an irregularity in 
order to do a turn to a soldier like yourself, 
I got four days ' imprisonment^. At my age ! 
You must apply to the military authorities. 
I have my orders." 

Unwearied, the colonial repeats: *^It's 
hard luck, all the same. To sell your skin 
for nothing and then to have to pay seven 

30US." 

*^I can't do an}i;hing, my friend." 

^^I beg your pardon. You can at least 
admit that it's hard luck." 

^^ Surely, surely." 

^^Then, that's all right." 

A station. Three hours to wait, for we 
must let the express go by, and it is still the 
devil of a way off. We all crowd into a 
waiting-room, where fifty soldiers are sleep- 
ing flat on the floor. Some others, with their 
hands held out towards a roaring stove, talk 
together in a low voice. 



18 IN THE LAND OF DEATH 

*^ Seventeen lads, that time, killed by a 
shell. Seventeen ! ' ' 

'^I saw twenty-one done for at a blow, 
once, at Verdun. We made a heap of them, 
to get our food behind them. Those swine 
went on firing on us all the time. But one 
must be in peace to eat one's food!" 

A railway man crosses the room through 
the fog of smoke, carrying a dimly-burning 
lantern. He steps over the soldiers who are 
asleep on the floor. Out in the night an 
engine whistles dolefully. 

'^Oh, dry up!" cries a zouave angrily. 

^^ Seventeen at a go. Scattered all 
around!" repeats the man who sits by the 
stove. 

*'And I — I saw twenty-one laid out by a 
single shell. Twenty-one!" replies the 
other. 

Their voices droned through the smoke. 
Snores rise from the planks. Here and 
there a head is raised. 

^'WiU that cursed train never come?" 

The express thunders past. A blaze of 
light. The earth trembles. The windows 



IN THE LAND OP DEATH 19 

shake and jingle in the putty of their 
frames. We wait on. We yawn. 

^^ Where is God in all this?" sighs an 
Alpin. 

The man comes back with his lamp. He 
calls out something. Then we all get up and 
seize our baggage. The sleepers tear them- 
selves from the delights of tjie flooring; 
they put on their caps and go out on to the 
platform, staggering with sleep. In the 
freezing train each of us finds a place and 
dozes off — the colonial, the reservist, the 
giant with the perforated Cap, the two 
women in mourning, the eight children with 
their tickets, together with the white-headed 
soldiers and the soldiers with beardless 
chins who are coming back from the place 
where men are dying. A whistle. Thrust- 
ing on into the wet night, the train carries 
away its burden of glory and wretchedness. 



A 



April, 1917. 

T full speed, in the grey of early morn- 
ing, our motor-car glides through 
sleeping Paris. Here and there a bourgeois 
in his night-gown draws aside a curtain, 
glances at the streaming sky and shakes his 
head disapprovingly. 

We pass through villages and forests — 
Chantilly, the reflection of whose chateau is 
yet invisible in the water of the lakes ; Com- 
piegne, where we are shown the spot where 
a Zeppelin crashed dowTi with its eighteen 
men, burning like torches; Ribecourt, or 
rather the ruins which bear that name. 

We have passed beyond the old French 
lines, with their labyrinth of trenches, their 
dug-outs, their networks of barbed wire, and 
now we are in the German lines: redoubts, 
communication trenches and other trenches 
where are still heaped pieces of furniture 

20 



IN THE LAND OP DEATH 21 

that have been taken from the houses. Ev- 
erywhere are signs: Eingang, Kein Aus- 
gang, AcMung, Lehensgefalir. And every- 
where, too, are pointed stakes, trous-de-lotip, 
chevaux-de-frise, entanglements of barbed 
wire so rusty that they show bright red 
against the frozen ground, while the French 
wire is of a silver grey. 

We go down into a dug-out, several yards 
below ground. Here we find some hay, a cov- 
erlet all in holes, a candle half burned. And 
we remember with astonishment that men 
have lived hidden here during thirty 
months; that in these trenches there have 
been dead men, pools of blood; that jokes 
and laughter have gone up from this place 
during hours of idleness; that here men 
have lived during the scorching August 
days, sweet days of autumn, days of snow, 
days of fog, days of freezing wind, days 
of warmth when spring has come back, 
and this during one year, two years, three 
years. 

One night they went away. And already 
the earth is falling in, and pools of water 
where rubbish floats are forming. Car- 



22 IN THE LAND OF DEATH 

tridge eases are sinking into the mud. And 
it is horribly sad, this ruined soil, where 
trees that the machine-gun has massacred 
show their white wounds. Not a living 
thing; not a sound. It seems as if here 
Death, more than anywhere, holds her 
sway. And one may sit in an obserration- 
post, raise one's head clear above the para- 
pet, examine the French trench, hardly 
sixty metres away. Machine-guns, rifles, 
and bombs, whose shrill music once filled 
these soUtudes, no longer ^' react," as one 
of our guides says. There is nothing now 
but this grey rain that comes down so quiet- 
ly, to rust a little more deeply these barbed 
wires; to knead this mud that is swallow- 
ing up everything that man has left behind 
him; to bring together, little by little, the 
lips of these wounds that the earth has re- 
ceived. The rain drowns, fills up, levels, 
abolishes. And the men who will come here 
a few months hence will not understand. 
**What!" they will cry scornfully, ^^is this 
all?" 

Ribecourt once passed, we enter the ter- 
ritory that has been won back. Very surely 



IN THE LAND OF DEATH 23 

it was not in a good temper that they gave 
it up. The telegraph-poles are sawn in 
two, as are the great trees which once 
formed a guard of honour all along these 
old roads of France. At the cross-roads 
are craters. In the beds of their tranquil 
streams the tall bridges lie ruined. It is 
war. Any army in retreat had done the 
like, though one tree cut down out of four 
would have served the same purpose of 
blocking the road. 

A little before we reach Noyon, for whole 
kilometres, the road is destroyed, blown up, 
and we roll over timber, planks laid side 
by side, whose ends tremble violently when 
a convoy passes over them. 

Noyon! The place is apparently un- 
touched, and Calvin no doubt would still 
recognise more than one district of his na- 
tive town. It is here that the Germans col- 
lected the inhabitants of the burned towns 
and villages, all those at least who were not 
between fourteen and sixty years old. 
These, with the exception of the mothers 
of families, were sent into the interior, be- 
ing kept back to do forced labour. And 



24 IN THE LAND OF DEATH 

so, one day, an endless, pitiful procession 
of children, old men and old women, carry- 
ing scanty bundles, arrived at Noyon, and 
while from the whole countryside to the 
farthest horizon there went up the flames 
of their blazing homes, these old people, 
packed together in the streets, under the 
icy rain, shivered with chattering teeth. 
Their torment lasted several hours. Re- 
joicing in his good luck. Death, during that 
day and the days that followed, carried off 
thirty of these unfortunates. 

While this poor herd waited in the rain 
upon the good pleasure of its masters, the 
latter finished the spoliation of the houses 
of Noyon. They burst open the safe of the 
Town Hall with a skill worthy of a profes- 
sional burglar. Furniture, mattresses, sil- 
ver, linen, agricultural machines, tools — 
nothing was forgotten by the skilful gangs 
who pillaged the houses and stables. When 
all was ready the carts moved off. Soldiers 
remained behind long enough to insure that 
the spoil had reached a place of safety; 
then they too vanished. And the old men 
and women who still waited for their orders 



IN THE LAND OF DEATH 25 

did not dare to believe in this liberty wMch 
they had bought at the price of everything 
that had been theirs. 

To-day, already recovered from their 
fears, the children play and shout in these 
courtyards. And the old people move about, 
leaning on their sticks, astonished that no 
one questions or suspects them. 

It is Sunday. If the belfries still had 
their bells they would be striking ten 
o'clock. We are expecting the arrival of 
the President of the Republic. In the town 
square, opposite an old fountain, a battal- 
ion stands behind its band and its flag. The 
bearing of these men impresses one vividly. 
In their helmet and cloak of a *^ horizon 
blue" that is grey with mud, knapsack on 
back, they stand motionless but without any 
stiffness. Since first taking the field they 
have endured rain, snow, sun, bombs, bul- 
lets, shells — nothing can now surprise them 
any more. They have fought in Belgium, 
in the Argonne, in Champagne, in the Vos- 
ges. To-morrow they will go wherever they 
are taken, perhaps to meet Death. A cool 
assurance gleams in their eyes. Individu- 



26 IN THE LAND OF DEATH 

alists, since they are intelligent men, none 
the less they stand shoulder to shoulder. 
And what health! We often think of the 
Frenchman as small, ahnost puny. To visit 
the front is to revise this opinion. Here 
we see by the dozen magnificent fellows, 
brawny, strapping, with their chests well 
out, standing solidly on their feet, in whom 
the perfect type of soldier is found. To 
see a French regiment at work in war-time 
is a glorious exhibition of athletic strength, 
of self-respect, and of gaiety. And what 
life burns in their eyes! Ah! splendid, 
magnificent fellows ! When I see you I un- 
derstand the Miracle of the Mame. To- 
morrow, what may you not do? 

All of a sudden we hear the click of 
drawn bavonets, the clatter of rifles han- 
died in unison. The bugles sound. The 
^^Marseillaise" is heard. The old men un- 
cover reverently. And one of them, with 
hunched shoulders, says, with melancholy 
pride: ^^ These are our men." 

The President passes along the line of 
bayonets. The flag dips. The bugles sound 
their call more quickly, ^^Aux amies, cito- 



IN THE LAND OF DEATH 27 

yens!'' A simple, toucliing picture of war. 
Dominating the scene, stretched across the 
front of a house, a strip of calico still pro- 
claims: Wechselshibe. This is the sole vis- 
ible evidence that the enemy has been here. 

The motor-car takes us towards Coucy. 
Instantly we are stupefied by what we see. 
Right and left of the road we point over 
the countryside, speechless, for' there are no 
words to describe what we feel. We were 
prepared to see hideous things, but we could 
not imagine this. Here, so to speak, we are 
in the very middle of the villainy. As far 
as we can see, we are hurled right against 
it. It envelops us, grips us, oppresses us. 
It is madness. Before this murder of the 
soil one can only weep. 

Everywhere, by the thousand, the fruit 
trees lie on the ground. Sawn across a 
yard from the earth, thrown down all in the 
same direction, they remain attached to 
their stumps only by a strip of bark. Apple 
trees, plum trees, cherry trees, all are 
brothers in this universal slaughter of the 
orchards. And so it is, right up to the tops 
of the hills. Here and there we see varia« 



28 IN THE LAND OF DEATH 

tions, refinements: a hatchet has bitten to 
the heart of these trunks ; rings stripe them 
where the bark has been cut away. Some 
of them even, their bark stripped from 
where they fall to the very ground, stand, 
strange white columns in the tender green 
of the meadows. What matter how it has 
been done ! Not one of these wounded trees 
will blossom again. And for every tree 
which will die erect, ninety are already 
dead, on their knees, their foliage in the 
furrows. 

The woods are almost uninjured. And 
so it is clear that it is no military object 
which has been sought, but that the enemy 
desired simply to grieve the peasants, to 
sicken them with misery, to terrorise them. 
And to complete this insane cruelty it has 
often been the peasants themselves, guarded 
hj armed soldiers, who have been forced to 
destroy their orchards, tree by tree. Some- 
times, again, where a charge of dynamite 
iias been used, an apple tree stands upright 
on its branches, its trunk in the air. Truly 
they have done their work well, these sol- 
diers of Kultur! 



IN THE LAND OF DEATH 29 

No, they have not cut the woods down — 
that would have taken too much time. But 
often there is an elm, a lime, an oak, some 
single giant, which lends character to a 
township or serves as a landmark to a 
neighbourhood. With a two-handled saw 
one can make one 's way through the tough- 
est trunk. And there lies the giant pros- 
trate, encircled with his broken crown of 
branches. Ghastly, hideous sight! 

But we must not let ourselves forget the 
smaller knaveries of this business. There 
are the gardens, the homely country gar- 
dens, dear to grandmothers, cats, and gen- 
tlemen of leisure. These have been espe- 
cially **bled." Rose trees, jessamines, vines, 
box trees, wall-fruit, ivy,, bushes — all are 
cut down to the roots ; while empty bottles, 
thrown about beside wells that "have been 
filled with dirt, show that the ruffians found 
their work a thirsty one. 

One cannot say precisely how far this 
idiotic destruction has been carried. Per- 
sonally we observed it over a district not 
less than forty kilometres by fifteen. But 
this, it seems, comes very short of the whole 



30 IN THE LAND OF DEATH 

damage. Prom Lausanne to Nyon, and 
from Morges to Cossonay — that is no small 
space of ground. Rare, very rare, are the 
orchards that have been spared. How are 
we to explain them? Do we here see the 
reward of assistance ? Or is it due to some 
officer's care for his own self-respect? Or 
is it simply an oversight? 

Having murdered the land, it is obvi- 
ously required that the villages should be 
killed; for crime has its own logic. We 
visited as many as twenty of these dead 
hamlets. It was enough But there are 
hundreds of them. 

A little petrol, some tar scattered in one 
room of each house, provide a sure means 
of destruction. A match thrown down, and 
in two hours the village is no more than a 
heap of ruins. This method was made clear 
by the pieces of blackened wall which alone 
stand upright. 

But there is also the dynamite cartridge ; 
and the mine. These are more efficacious. 
Whole streets can thus be blown up, to fall 
in dust upon the fields. In another part 
of the village we find nothing but a ceme- 



IN THE LAND OP DEATH 31 

tery of stones in wMcli it is hard to recog- 
nise the place where a single house once 
stood. Nothing is here but a heap of indis- 
tinguishable rubbish. Guncy, the two Cou- 
cies, Trosly-Loire, and as many more vil- 
lages have been killed in this fashion. 
Whole roofs have been hurled to a distance 
of one hundred yards. 



II 



LET us stop a moment at Trosly-Loire. 
It used to be a pretty little town, of 
more than a thousand inhabitants, loosely 
thrown along the bank of a stream, at the 
foot of low hills. Here and there were 
farms scattered through the fields ; a hamlet 
or two. To-day this fair spot defies de- 
scription. It is a heap of stones, beams, 
shattered furniture, tiles, clothing torn to 
rags, and the hundred things necessary to 
domestic life. Not a wall; not a cellar; 
nothing. Flat rubbish-heaps everywhere. 
You poke about with your walking-stick. 
You stoop down. You bring to light a post- 
card on which is still to be read: **My 
dear Adele ..." Here is a diploma; a 
certificate of first communion ; the statuette 
of a saint; a cup, quite uninjured, with a 
design of forget-me-nots. Lying on a brok- 
en hurdle is the sign of an inn: ^*As well 
here as elsewhere." 

32 



IN THE LAND OF DEATH 3^ 

Where are the people? The children 
and the old folk are at Noyon. All the 
others have been carried off into slavery. 
One shudders to think of all the moral and 
physical suffering endured by those who 
were born and grew up in this town of 
Trosly-Loire. 

We take a climbing road which leads us 
up on to the heights above' these ruins. 
Here, in a magnificent situation, the Ger- 
man cemetery has been laid out, to last for 
ever. Walls six feet high, and on each 
grave — they are in hundreds — heavy stones, 
on which the name and age of each dead 
man are cut, together with a text from the 
Bible. And this catches one at the heart, 
for it is always fine to give one's life. One 
reads the names of Germans and 18 years 
old, 19, 20, 30, 45, 51. And everywhere 
one sees: '^Etilie sanff . . . ^^Hier ruJit in 
GoW . . . ^^Dem Atige fern, dem Herzen 
nail," , . . And in the very heart of the 
place, in the midst of all these German 
dead, lie a French soldier and a Russian: 
^^Here lies the French soldier ." . . , 



34 IN THE LAND OF DEATH 

^^Hier ruM in Gott Jegor Savonine, Ge- 
'fangener d, russ, Armee, Gef, Arheits/' 

A frank admission. Truly we dare not 
think of this poor Jegor Savonine, bom in 
some Russian village, dragged into captiv- 
ity, forced to make German trenches, and 
killed by a French shell at Trosly-Loire, 
where he now lies! 

And one's mind comes back to all these 
German dead so arrogantly laid in French 
soil — ^to this lad of eighteen, this **Land- 
sturmer" of fifty-one, to all these men who 
rose at the call of their Emperor and made 
him the gift of their life. One would wish 
to salute them. . . . But all round this cem- 
etery there lie these thousands of prostrate 
trees, many of which touch with their dis- 
consolate heads the white wall behind which 
these dead sleep. And this village, flattened 
to the earth. And these families, savagely 
torn apart, carried off like cattle; all this 
happiness destroyed, all these tears of blood 
that have fallen, and this cry of an old 
woman: *' Never — no, never shall I be able 
to have a light heart again." And here, a 
stone 's-throw from this cemetery, there is 



IN THE LAND OF DEATH 35 

this garden which waited only upon the 
breath of spring to blossom, whose vines 
and rose trees now lie low in the mud. Why 
insult and defile these dead men? . . . 
^'Hier ruht in Goft/' . . . Poor souls! We 
would be glad to bend our heads over your 
graves and murmur a prayer; but from 
here we can see the whole devastated valley 
from side to side, all this other destruction 
of trees and villages, all this suffering which 
cries aloud, and which is your work and 
that of your brothers. And it is too much 
for us and we pass on, overwhelmed. 

By an improvised bridge we cross the 
stream, where a soldier is fishing with dy- 
namite, pulling the white-bellied fish to the 
bank with a long pole. And here we must 
get down, for the road is destroyed. They 
are fighting in these thick woods, while 
aloft the shells are screaming. 

And why this new crime, more useless 
than all the others? Once the Emperor 
William said to a Frenchman: *^You have 
in France a marvel of marvels — the Cha- 
teau of Coucy." Seated on its hill, at the 
foot of which a villa2:e hides, on the edge 



36 IN THE LAND OF DEATH 

of vast woods, it soared with its crenellated 
keep, its towel's and its walls, which had 
defied the centuries, sixty metres into the 
air. Avenues of huge trees, forming a 
cross, led up to it, and these trees, this vil- 
lage, this hill, and this tremendous castle 
presented a spectacle that was unique in 
the w^orld. Well, these trees, every one of 
them, have been cut down to the roots ; this 
village dynamite has destroyed, and 20,000 
kilograms of explosives have blotted out 
this keep, these towers, these walls. The 
hill is smothered in debris; the plain is 
heaped with monstrous pieces of masonry; 
the earth is covered with a grey dust. 

When one thinks, seated among these 
ruins, of so much beauty slain, fury fills 
one's heart. Herostratus, Attila, so many 
other Scourges of God outdone ! It was the 
glory and the splendour of France that 
here they have willed to murder. And it 
is even more stupid than the rest of their 
destruction; it is so stupid that one can 
only weep. How do these trees affect the 
war? And this keep, these towers? What 
could be seen from up there, since a thick 



IN THE LAND OF DEATH 37 

forest stretches away to the very horizon "? 

Is it spite? Did they hope to keep this 
castle for ever? Did the Hohkonigsburg 
shame, at this distance, the Ehenish hills? 
Did they wish to stun the blue-clad soldiers 
l>y heaping up these ruins beneath their 
feet? Did they hope to stay our advance 
by thus showing of what they were capable ? 
Did they mean that our men ^should die in 
order to conquer nothing but heaps of 
stones that the flames had blackened? 

Pride, they say, makes mad those whom 
it has blinded. This hill of rubbish is worse 
than a lost battle. So long as there are 
men on earth they will make pilgrimage to 
this spot. They will utter curses, blasphe- 
mies. This monstrous midden will tell its 
story to all time. The children of those 
who committed the crhne will blush for it. 
They will be ashamed of the name they 
bear. Prom a defeat recovery is possible; 
but there are infamies which can never die. 
Who could rejoice to see a great people, 
that has given so much to mankind, so stu- 
pidly bring this all to a standstill, deliver- 



38 IN THE LAND OF DEATH 

ing itself over to the sneers and the detesta- 
tion of the whole world? In face of 
this catastrophe, in face of this hill all 
heaped with stones, which, five days ago, 
breathed the very spirit of history, how 
may we hold back the rage from our 
hearts ? 

Suddenly an aeroplane emerges from the 
dark sky. Swift bird of prey, its wings 
spread ^dde, it rushes upon the ruins. The 
air is rent. It is a machine-gun, which, 
from on high, is firing upon these debris. 
The bird swings round the hill, makes its 
obsen^ations, and all at once flies into the 
clouds and vanishes. 

Books are scattered over the ground. 
Whence do they come? From the cure's 
house that has been blown up ? Here, torn 
to pieces, are the sermons of Bossuet, the 
Verrines, sermons, a novel, a chapter of 
which begins with these words: ^^When 
Jeanne laughed, she showed all her teeth " 
And here is a Virgil, open at the third 
book of the ^neid. The poet is speaking 
of Polyphemus : 



IN THE LAND OF DEATH 39 

Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cm lumfin 

ademptum : 
Tnmca manum pinus regit et vestigia firmat. 

Let US be off! Still they are fighting in 
the depths of these woods, where the guns 
thunder, and then become an indistinct 
murmur like that of a crowd. 

And once more we cross the ruined coun- 
try, the levelled villages. One has difficulty 
in breathing. One asks oneself if one is 
still a man — if one is not the victim of a 
nightmare. And the scent of death, of 
smoke, of ruins under which the carcasses 
of beasts are rotting makes one faint with 
nausea. 

No more of these houses and dead trees 
if we are to get a fresh hold on life ! And 
we clutch at the life which flows solely 
along the road. For ten kilometres per- 
haps, carriages, baggage-waggons, ambu- 
lances, motor-omnibuses, carts, all imagin- 
able vehicles, are literally januned together. 
And in this terrific stream not one pause, 
not a dispute, not an obstruction. No one 
gives orders or shouts. They are used to 
what they are doing. They know just what 



40 IN THE LAND OF DEATH 

is to be done. An arm goes up: they stop. 
Again rises: they go on. The wheeled kit- 
chens smoke placidly. Perched on the roof 
of one of these a cook pours carrots and 
turnips into his boiler, winking and joking, 
so that a poilUy who is positively rolling 
with laughter on his waggon, shouts to him : 
''You 're the lad! Why, you're just about 
as screamingly funny as your kitchen." 

Another fellow, nose in the air, examines 
the aeroplanes which glide about the sky. 
The sight fills him with envy, and he cries : 
''Our leaders are a dull lot; why don't they 
stick some wings on our waggons'?" 

Meanwhile we must roll on through the 
mud — a liquid mud, like glue — which the 
gangs of "territorials" forever scrape away 
and throw into the fields. Here and there 
a regiment halts and piles arms. The 
men smoke, standing or lying on the muddy 
ground. They are so entirely accustomed 
to it. And they chaff one another or grum- 
ble away out loud. 

"How long are they going to cart us 
about like this?" 

"When will this foUv be over?" 



IN THE LAND OF DEATH 41 

**A rotten trade!" 

** Don't you worry!" 

Their officer has given the order: ^^Put 
on your knapsacks." 

They jump up and, with a large move- 
ment, swing on to their shoulders this knap- 
sack, which is a veritable monument of 
war — shovel, mess-tin, blanket, boots, can- 
teen, and what beside? They take their 
rifles and once again the endless blue rib- 
bon winds along through the mud. 

And they say: 

^^One more march . . . Perhaps, next 
time . . . After that, nothing doing . . ." 

If necessary they will say the same thing 
for months. Each morning when they wake, 
each evening as they go to bed — if they 
do go to bed — they will repeat: '^A rotten 
trade!" They will say it again, five min- 
utes before dying like heroes. This regi- 
ment, which is returning to billets, crosses 
another, which is going up to the firing- 
line. Exchange of compliments. 

^^Lazy devils ! You're going to rest your- 
selves, eh? And what for?" 



42 IN THE LAOT) OF DEATH 

*'Just wait a bit, my lad, till a bomb 
stops your mouth." 

''Are you afraid of the Bocbes that 
you're off home*?" 

''And you? Is it with that guinea-pig's 
face that you expect to go to Berlin?" 

'^Manon, void le soleil/' sings a tremen- 
dous voice. 

And off they go, bent under their knap- 
sacks, their soles clinging to the ground. 
As far as one can see it is all a nodding 
of caps, a bristling of spade-handles, a 
swinging of coat-skirts. And forever the 
waggons roll on, the aeroplanes snarl — that 
snarling of the aeroplanes, patrols of the 
sky — ^that trampling of the drove of men. 

And everywhere again these dead trees, 
these disembowelled houses, these cemeteries 
where these other regiments of crosses 
stand packed together. 

^'Manon, void le soleil '' chants the voice 
once more. 

Each man goes to meet his destiny. 



in 



IN Ham, a charming little town, at last 
we find houses again. Like Noyon, this 
was a place of refuge where the people of 
the destroyed villages were collected. But 
here also the Germans were resolved to 
make their departure felt: the houses are 
emptied from cellar to garret. Everything 
that could not be carried off, like tables and 
chairs, has been smashed with axes where 
it stood, or with pickaxes, by gangs of sol- 
diers led by officers. A sort of delirium, a 
frenzy seized them. Those who saw are 
still shaken by it. . . . Half an hour before 
they left four lieutenants ran through the 
streets, firing their revolvers at the house- 
fronts and breaking the windows with 
stones. 

*^ Madmen, monsieur,'' says an old woman 
again and again. 

None the less these old people are willing 

43 



44 IN THE LAND OF DEATH 

to do justice to those who have so savagely 
ruined them. They admit freely that the 
Germans in no way hindered America's 
work of provisioning the people, and say 
that in many cases, on the contrary, they 
gave it their help. They say that among 
them was a remarkable number of kindly, 
benevolent men, who deplored the hard- 
ships of war and at times did their utmost 
to soften them. But the moment they be- 
gan to talk of their departure all these men, 
headed by their officers and non-commis- 
sioned officers, suddenly became furious 
madmen. The sound of explosions, the 
blaze of fires became part of daily life. 
They egged themselves on to ruin the very 
soil. No longer could they come across a 
single thing that was whole but they must 
smash it. It was a lunacy which possessed 
them. In the end of all, after they had 
pillaged the towns which had been set apart 
as refuges and broken all the furniture 
that they did not carry off, and stolen 
every precious thing from the few churches 
which had been spared, even to the pipes 
of the organs (this we proved at Ham), 



IN THE LAND OF DEATH 45 

while the soldiers looked on at the villages 
leaping into the air and the horizon drap- 
ing itself in red, some of them gave vent 
to nervous laughter, chuckling in their ma- 
licious joy. 

And the old woman says : 

'^For two years we were well enough; but 
in the last month, monsieur, it took them 
suddenly. Madmen! Madmen! Madmen! 
Only look!'' 

And her lean arm points to the ruins 
with which the whole country is, as it were, 
sown. 

^^Is it really true that they have taken 
away young girls as hostages?" we ask one 
of our guides. 

*^ Young girls? Better than that. Ask 
the Mayor, or any civilian, and you will 
hear an edifying tale." 

In fact, since February the Germans 
have indeed carried off the whole civil pop- 
ulation of both sexes, between the ages of 
fourteen and sixty, the mothers of families 
and infirm persons only excepted; and this 
from all places in the territory which they 
have evacuated. In most cases these unfor- 



46 IN THE LAND OP DEATH 

tunates received but two hours' notice of 
the decision by which they were over- 
whehned. They were entitled to carry with 
them thirty kilograms of luggage. And 
thus a woman might see her husband leave 
her first. Of her four children one, ten 
years old, remains to her. Three daugh- 
ters of fifteen, seventeen, and twenty have 
been carried away. Where are they? For 
two months she has had no word of them. 

And this woman is here, before us ; a big 
woman, visibly honest; her eyes are filled 
with tears. 

*^Yes, monsieur, they took them away 
from me one morning. I had barely the 
time to kiss them before they were gone. 
What do you think they have done with 
them?" 

Come into the next house that is filled 
with rubbish; here we find the same story, 
and in the next again, and everywhere. 
Sometimes it has been said with a sneer: 
''The girls who have gone were willing 
enough. A hint suffices." To grasp the 
true horror of the reality one must be on 
the spot, one must speak to the people, hear 



IN THE LAND OP DEATH 47 

their complaints, read the agony in their 
eyes. For we are here concerned at once 
with deportation to forced labour and with 
the dispersal of families. Here are miss- 
ing the father and two boys of fourteen 
and sixteen, carried off on three occasions; 
here it is the father, a son, and two daugh- 
ters; the mother and a little girl of eleven 
have been left. Here only'two old people 
of seventy remain; the two other genera- 
tions are gone, nine souls in all. Among 
these ruins of Ham and Noyon there is not 
one person who is not asking what has be- 
come of children or of grandchildren. They 
have witnessed such scenes of savagery, 
they have lived through nights of such hor- 
ror — ^while the whole countryside went up 
in smoke and thunder — ^that they expected 
nothing but the worst. And here is an old 
man, lame and leaning on his stick, who 
says: 

^^It is pretty, eh? The farm burned 
down ; my wife dead last year ; my boy and 
two girls carried off by those scoundrels; 
all my cattle stolen. What do you fancy is 
to becom.e of me now? To weep is too 



48 i:^r THE LAND OF DEATH 

stupid. And so, what"? Visit the ruins? 
That is even more stupid. Well, what? 
What then?" 

It is a fact that the suffering imposed 
upon these poor people goes beyond any- 
thing that one can imagine. As one of 
them says: **They have died like flies in 
autumn." And those who remain move like 
ghosts through this town which is no longer 
theirs, dragging about with them the utter 
desolation of their whole life. 

We continue our tour of these ruins. 
There lies the belfry of Ham prostrate. 
The famous chateau, where Prince Napo- 
leon was prisoner from 1840 to 1846, and 
from which he escaped with the connivance 
of ' Badinguet, is nothing but a heap of 
stones lying in its moat. It too boasted its 
keep and towers; it too can to-day show 
nothing more than an immense heap of red 
bricks, vast blocks of stone and cement, so 
huge that one looks instinctively for the 
traces of the avalanche which has carried 
them so far. Of the whole enormous build- 
ing nothing remains but the shattered wall 
where is pierced the principal gateway. 



IN THE LAND OF DEATH 49 

The crime of Ham seems just as hateful 
as that of Coucy, but even more useless, 
and so more stupid, were that possible. 
For the castle of Ham was built upon a 
level plain. The top of the keep did not 
rise above the summits of the hills which 
lie a few hundred metres' distance. Since 
their famous method of *^ according to 
plan" obliged the Germans -to retreat more 
than twenty-five kilometres from this place, 
one indeed finds some difficulty in perceiv- 
ing what strictly military value this edi- 
fice, now destroyed, can have had in their 
eyes. . . . But the memory of a Napoleon 
was here enshrined. It was a great castle, 
which could be seen from afar. ... No 
other reason was needed for levelling it 
with the soil. . . . 

Once more we are moving at full speed 
through this slaughtered land. These heaps 
of stones were once called Emery-Hallen, 
Libermont, Eschen, Solente, Champien. Here 
we get out. Another German cemetery — hun- 
dreds of close-set graves. Again we read: 
^^Riihe sanft"; again: ^^Hier ruM in Gott/' 
And here are five-and-twenty Frenchmen 



50 IN THE LAND OF DEATH 

and five Germans (unbekannte Soldaten) 
in the one common grave. A statue of Peace 
six feet high, perched on the wall, once pre- 
sided over these dead men. Upon its pedestal 
we read : Freund tend Feind im Tod vereint. 
This statue has been torn from its pedestal 
by the hands of Frenchmen and has been 
cast down to the foot of the wall, where it 
now lies, broken into twenty pieces. 

*^Does that surprise you, messieurs'?" 
says an officer. *'You will understand pres- 
ently. But observe the condition of this 
cemetery. See these gravestones, these 
crosses, these crowns. Our men, though 
they were furious at what they had seen in 
this pillaged country, have respected the 
last sleep of their enemies. It could not 
be otherwise. But come along; come.'' 

We pass through Champien on foot. 
Champien — that is to say, a maze of ruins. 
Over roads inconceivably muddy, through 
heavy rain, we come to the old French 
cemetery, laid out around the burned 
church. All that remains of this church 
is some blackened walls and a few columns 
which now support nothing. We thought that 



IN THE LAND OP DEATH 51 

we had seen the worst. But we were wrong : 
the worst is here. It is not only ugly, stu- 
pid, useless, mad ; but here we leave behind 
the realm of those sentiments which human 
beings can experience. We recoil before so 
hideous a bestiality, and we look one an- 
other in the eyes to see if the others have 
seen what we have seen ; and when there we 
discover a sort of terrified -embarrassment 
we become convinced of the reality of what 
is before us. 

Yes — it must be said> however monstrous 
it be: all these graves have been violated. 
The stones of family tombs — huge stones 
weighing hundreds of pounds — ^have been 
torn up and smashed. The Germans have 
gone down into the vaults. They have 
taken up the slabs on which the coffins lay. 
These coffins and their bones, the poor relics 
of the bodies, have been carried off and 
thrown down no one knows where. These 
yawning vaults are empty, and now upon 
these wrecked monuments there is nothing 
but the names of those who once slept here. 
Yet here in this vault, while they have car- 
ried off the coffins which lay upon the 



52 IN THE LAND OF DEATH 

upper slabs,' 'they have left this one which 
was at the very bottom. It has been 
broken open with a pickaxe, and with the 
bones rubbish has been mixed, fragments 
of bottles, jam pots. One would be glad to 
say that these outrages are the work of two 
or three of those madmen, those ghouls, who 
are to be found everywhere. But all the 
graves have been opened, all about the 
church, in every quarter of the churchyard. 
The work must have been done by ordered 
gangs of men, armed with levers and pul- 
leys. One feels that it has been carried out 
with method and under the command of su- 
periors. . . . The great fir tree which for- 
merly shaded one part of this cemetery, 
sawn across at the roots and lying at full 
length on the ground, confirms this impres- 
sion, makes the thing certain. This can 
only have been the work — the crime rather 
— of the commander of the local detach- 
ment. 

But obviously the whole German army is 
not to be blackened by one villainy. Yet 
this profanation of the cemetery at Cham- 
pien is no isolated event. Others of the 



IN THE LAND OF DEATH 53 

kind have been reported. How are we to 
explain it? The work, no doubt, of brain- 
sick men, of criminal lunatics. The work 
too of soldiers who have ceased to be men, 
who have carried their obedience to the 
point of abandoning every ordinary senti- 
ment. The order to destroy everything was 
given. Certain commanders have carried it 
out literally. Everything^ is — everything. 
To declare war upon the dead, is it not one 
other way of hurting those who still live? 
. . . Things, deeds can, it seems, be logical. 
To burn, to blow up, to mine the fields, to 
kill the trees, to live day after day in the 
midst of smoke and detonations, surrounded 
by the glare of fires, the ears filled with 
the cries of those who are being hunted 
like cattle along the roads, the shrieks of 
women from whose arms their children are 
being torn — such war makes men mad. Ar- 
guments? Objections? It is the order. It 
7nust be carried out The safety of the 
Empire is at stake. Yes, here is enough 
to overthrow weak intellects, to lead men 
into the worst of excesses, the blackest of 
infamies. 



54 IN THE LAND OF DEATH 

Standing beside these ruined tombs we 
looked at one another. There were present 
the Ambassador of a neutral Power, two 
Italian journalists, a Staff captain, a lieu- 
tenant (the author of Meditations dans la 
tranchee), and the writer of these lines. 
Were we the victims of an hallucination? 
. . . Alas! 

This evening a French soldier said to 
us: 

**It is disgusting. . . . One cannot under- 
stand things like that. . . . Dead men are 
intended to sleep. . . . One does not awak- 
en them. Besides, they cannot answer 
you.'' 

And another: 

^^To injure the dead — it is to bring bad 
luck on your heads. They are done for, 
these people. And don't you think that 
such dirty work gives our fellows some 
courage f" 

We stayed a long time in the cemetery of 
Champien. It was raining buckets, and the 
water spUshed in the bottoms of those gap- 
ing vaults. Black clouds, fringed with yel- 
low, raced giddily across the sky. Sur- 



IN THE LAND OF DEATH 55 

rounded by ruins, felled trees, close beside 
this church with its charred walls, face to 
face with these violated graves, we seemed 
to be in the very heart of Hell. It cannot 
be possible to live through moments more 
poignant. ... In battle you are at work, 
the heart beats strongly, the nerves are 
tense, a sort of recklessness carries you 
along. . . . Here all is Death. . , . And 
suddenly there appears an old woman in 
the midst of this desert, searching the rub- 
bish heaps with her stick. With her sharp 
nose, her trembling chin, and her shining, 
half -mad eyes, she seems the restless spirit 
of this ravaged land. 



BETWEEN Bapaume and Soissons the 
Germans have just lost the greatest 
battle of the war. For centuries to come 
men will speak of the vandalism of Ger- 
many as they speak to-day of the Huns of 
Attila. Why have the leaders of this val- 
iant army, whose soldiers in so many hun- 
dreds of thousands have laid down their 
lives for that which thev believed to be the 



56 IN THE LAND OF DEATH 

salvation of their country — why have those 
leaders dishonoured their men by forcing 
them to do these odious things ? "When the 
victims of all this useless cruelty are gone 
these ruins will still bear witness against 
Germany. Upon its hill for evermore the 
corpse of Coucy Chateau shall lie. In this 
plain there will always be the corpses of 
hundreds of towns and villages. One day 
there will come to this place the Professor 
of History who sa^^s ^'that people always 
exaggerate" and the amiable neutral for 
whom all the belligerents ^'are equally his 
friends." Perhaps then (a little late in 
the day) they will understand that it was 
against Hiunanity itself that Germany de- 
clared war, that the defeat of France and 
England would have been tantamount to 
the enslaving of the whole world, that Ger- 
many had been poisoned by militarism. 

What a pitiful psychology is that of these 
great leaders of Germany! Once again, by 
slaying a whole land, by martyrising the 
souls of men, they thought to stun their 
adversaries and cast them prostrate at their 
feet. And, behold ! they have made this war 



IN THE LAND OF DEATH 57 

a thing inexpiable. They have sown hate 
and they must reap their harvest. The 
terrorism which was to give them a quick 
victory turns now against its originators; 
it is because of it that they will be beaten 
down — ^because of it they have been devoted 
to the scorn of a world. 

Poor Chateau of Coucy, poor dead ham- 
lets, poor mutilated towns, poor slaughtered 
trees, poor old women who weep upon the 
ruins of your homes! — you are the pledges 
of a brighter future. The outrages and 
the sufferings which have been dealt out to 
you have filled the hearts of the soldiers of 
France and England with the inflexible will 
to conquer. It is from this land, so sav- 
agely devastated, that the certitude of tri- 
umph has arisen. 



<? 



'^^7 

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